Commentary on the so-called Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design Debate and Right-Wing nuttery in general -
and please ignore the typos (I make lots!)

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Crevo on Dinosaur/human co-existence

One of the necessary attributes of the young-earth creationism (YEC) position is the acceptence of the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs. Indeed, at the Creation Museum in Kentucky (where else!), one can see a display of a dinosaur wearing a saddle.Crevo (Jonathan Bartlett, a computer programmer) takes it as a given.He writes on his blog:

"It appears that the ancient cambodians had drawings of many common creatures in their temples. Creatures they probably saw every day. Including monkeys, deer, water buffalo, parrots, lizards, and ...... a stegasaurus."and links to an article on this website.

Below, I present three images. The image on the left is an actual stegasaurus skeleton. On the right is an artist's rendition of what a living stegasaurus might have looked like basec on the skeletal remains. The center image is the carved 'stegasaurus' from the Cambodian temple.

While the temple carving is interesting, it does not appear to be of a stegasaurus to me. Of note is the very different heads of the carving and the actual skull.

One of the things that always intrigues me about these claims - does it not seem as though the ancients would have made a bigger fuss about these dinosaurs in their midst? By any account, dinosaurs were impressive in size and attributes (big teeth, horns, etc.). I should think that if dinosaurs and humans co-existed, they would be common in myths, drawings, inscriptions, etc.Not to mention their bones. Archaeologists have found the remains of homes built using mammoth tusks and bones, butchery sites of large extinct mammals and the like. Why no dinosaur bones? Why no triceratops skulls found alongside stone tools?

And the creationists like to accuse evolutionists of going beyond the evidence...

3 comments:

Perhaps Dinosaurs did exist in myth, legend, story, and the art of ancient peoples.

It is quite possible though that they were known under a different name. The word Dragon comes to mind.

And there is plenty of myth, legend, and story for dragons. In almost every ancient culture, I believe.

For the art, however, i would recommend doing some research into the figurines of Acambara(sp), Mexico. And also into the Ica stones. Not to mention depictions of Dinosaurs in carvings and drawings by Native American Indians. Also, I seem to recall a Roman Tapestry from the 2nd century which depicts two Sauropods intertwined.